Tim Blair

Tim Blair (born 1965) is an Australian editor, journalist,[1]conservative political commentator and prominent blogger. He is based in Sydney, Australia.

Blair was raised and educated in Werribee, Victoria. He began a journalism cadetship in 1988 at the now-defunct Truth newspaper in Melbourne. He went on to become its editor, the youngest person ever to hold the position. In mid-2001, he began blogging at Blogspot. By 2004, Blair had attracted a significant following, the Sydney Morning Herald describing him as a "top dog among the new Australian digerati" who "some days draws more than 20,000 readers to his website."[2] In 2006, his relocated blog, timblair.net, was voted second "Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog" in the 2006 Weblog Awards.[3] Today, Blair's blog is located on the Daily Telegraph website.

Starting a few days after George W. Bush's visit to Baghdad during Thanksgiving 2003, Blair has documented and disproved claims that a roast turkey that Bush was photographed holding up was plastic.[9][10][11][12] The roast turkey was real.[13]

Some bloggers use the term "Blair's Law" to describe a theoretical alliance or shared empathy between far right groups, far left groups and extremist Islamists. In 2002, Blair described this supposed alliance as an "ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force"[14]). The phrase has been adopted and embraced by several conservative and libertarian bloggers.[15][16][17][18]

In 2007, Media Watch, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV program which Blair has often criticised, stated that The Daily Telegraph, other newspapers and Blair failed to censor racist comments on their websites.[19] Blair and the Telegraph reported that Media Watch had themselves failed to censor antisemitic comments at their own website,[20][21] and that their story relied on "unacknowledged assistance"[22] from "Muslim Village, [a website which] is guilty itself of publishing offensive comments".[23] The ABC later launched an internal inquiry into Media Watch's dealings with Muslim Village.[24]

In March 2009, Pure Poison, a blog hosted by online media site Crikey, alleged that Blair "comments under a pseudonym on his blog and various other blogs" and was "unprofessional in his conduct as a journalist".[25] Both Pure Poison and Crikey issued a partial retraction a few days later. In April 2010, Pure Poison and Crikey fully retracted their report and apologised,[25] after Blair commenced legal action.[26] Blair subsequently accepted a confidential settlement.[27] This legal action drew claims of hypocrisy from some quarters, based on Blair once claiming that "journalists suing journalists" was "graceless and weird".[28]

In August 2010, Crikey amended an online article, written by Guy Rundle, that "misrepresented the views of Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt", admitting that "references to them were offensive and indefensible."[29]